On Friday it was the tag-team combo of Shawn Estes and Turk Wendell. Yesterday it was Jeff Fassero. You know, sometimes ex-Cubs come in handy. And when they do it’s nice to harken back to the best days they ever had as Cubs. The days they packed their stuff up and left.
Fassero’s last two Wrigley appearances have been memorable. Last year he served up a 15th inning game-winner to Sammy Sosa in the first game of that double header in September. Yesterday he made a hero out of Corey Patterson, to cap a weekend in which Corey’s neck got sore lugging around those goat horns.
The real culprit in the Rockies’ demise was their manager, Clint Hurdle. No matter, that he did a nice job of shuffling around mediocre relievers all weekend, but in the final inning yesterday he made an aggregious error. He intentionally walked Damian Jackson.
Damian Jackson! Damian had already homered in the game, which meant he’s not due to get another hit for like two weeks. The Rockies thought so little of Damian that they cut him in spring training, and yet here it was, two outs, two on, bottom of the 13th and Jackson’s up. The Cubs were getting ready to play the 14th and Charles Johnson stood up and gave the signal to give Damian four bad ones.
Who knew?
On the surface the move made some sense. Corey Patterson was struggling, and swinging at everything. Plus, there was the lefty-lefty “advantage” for Fassero. But reality was something else. Corey can hit strikes, he just doesn’t see them very often. Fassero had to throw Corey strikes, or at least balls that were were in the neighborhood of home plate, because a wild pitch, or passed ball would mean the game was over. Plus, Fassero stinks, so the lefty-lefty advantage goes out the window. Fassero had to throw Corey a first pitch strike and he did, and Corey smoked it to the wall for the game winner.
The Cubs needed that win. They hadn’t won a series since sweeping the Mets two weeks ago, and now they’re off on a California road trip to LA and San Diego before they come back to face the woeful Giants and Cardinals.
The real hero yesterday was E-ramis Ramirez. He and Derrek Lee and Michael Barrett had hooked up in the top of the ninth to turn some bad Vinny Castilla baserunning into a 5-3-2 double play. Then with two outs in the bottom of the inning, E-ramis launched one that landed somewhere in Lake Michigan. In this week’s Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci feels the need to publish a list of six third baseman he says are better than E-ramis. The list is wrong. There’s one who’s better, there are five more who are just as good as Ramirez.
The sad thing about the weekend is that if Greg Maddux doesn’t allow the first homer of his career to an opposing pitcher, the Cubs sweep. It seems like Greg is racking up a lot of “firsts” in his return to Chicago, and most of the firsts are bad. Oh, well.
—
Mark Prior is going to throw a three inning simulated game today in Arizona, and the Cubs say he’ll throw between 45 and 50 pitches. So, does this mean if Kerry Wood pitches a simulated game he has to throw 90 pitches in three innings?
Andy Pratt is going to throw a simulated inning in Des Moines today. The handy thing about Andy throwing one is that you don’t need to ask the catcher to show up, because all of the pitches are going to hit the backstop anyway.
The addition of the perpetually tattooed Damian Jackson (his arms are creepy looking–they’re absolutely covered with tats) means that the Cubs have both sides of the second base platoon the Red Sox used last year. Todd Walker and Jackson are a combined 30-100 (.300) with five homers, 15 RBI, 21 walks, 13 strikeouts and an on base percentage of .425.
Mark Bellhorn (remember him?) is playing second for Boston and he’s hitting .228 with three homers, 14 RBI and a .394 on base average. Get this, Bellhorn has walked 27 times and struck out THIRTY-SIX times! Thirty-six! In 101 at bats.
Granted, Jackson sucks hard enough to help bridge that gap, but thirty-six strikeouts in 101 at bats? Even Jose Hernandez could mock that.
Just why did Boston want Bellhorn more than Walker? Do we have any idea? Did they really think Walker was THAT bad in the field? Because we’ve seen Bellhorn’s defense, and it blows, too. Yikes.
—
Last night’s Survivor: All-Star finale has to be discussed. This thing was a complete train wreck. Just awful.
We started the night with a final four of Rupert, Jenna, Boston Rob and Amber. This was after last week when Tom, Rupert and Jenna didn’t have brains enough to take out Amber when Rob won immunity.
So when Amber won immunity, it was obvious what Rupert and Jenna had to do. They had to both vote for Rob and see what happened when the vote came back as a tie between Rupert and Rob. Jenna was basically the deciding vote. She knew Rob and Amber were voting for Captain Caveman (Rupert) and if she went with them, she was guaranteed a spot in the final three. But here’s the thing. If she went against them, she also was guaranteed a spot in the final three. She already knew that Rob and Amber would vote her off to make themselves the final two. There was no good reason for Jenna to vote for anybody but Rob.
The one thing we learned in this edition of Survivor is that the guys who run the show jerk around the rules all the time. Jenna and Rob and Rupert all assumed that if there was a tie, they’d do the thing where they put different colored rocks in a bag and one color would you were out of the game. If you pulled that rock, you lost. But just because that’s how they did that the one time it’s happened in nine seasons, doesn’t mean they’d do it that way again.
But Jenna was a moran and voted off Rupert, meaning she was guaranteeing herself what would have been the worst-case scenario had she voted for Rob. Just how dumb are these people?
The final three were Jenna, Rob and Amber and the final immunity was some ridiculous thing where they stood on poles sticking out fo the water and had to keep their hands on the immunity idol. If they moved their feet or lost contact with the idol, they were out. After two hours, Jenna moved her foot and was gone. That left Rob and Amber to vie for a million bucks.
But here’s the thing, they’re in love! Aww, isn’t that cute? In fact, Rob proposed to Amber just before the votes were read to determine who won the million bucks. That sound you heard last night was the sound of about 30 million Americans wretching.
The final tribal council was ridiculous. It was pretty much Lex and Kathy yelling at Rob for lying to them. It was like having George Ofman on the show. “They’re LYING! They’re LYING!” The most pathetic part was when Big Tom went to shake Rob’s hand and pulled it back and said, “Don’t be stupid…stupid.”
The best part of the night was in the post-show when Dick Hatch proved…again…he’s the only one who gets the game. He tried to explain to Kathy and Lex that everything is fair in the game, and the only reason they were pissed off was because they trusted Rob, and you never trust anybody in the game. When Dick Hatch is the voice of reason, you’ve got problems.
Rudy admitted that had he stayed on the island he’d have pummelled or even killed one of the other Survivors. Colby must have lost his Shick Quattro endorsement because he needed a shave and Jenna cleans up remarkably well. Who knew? Now if she could just do something about that voice.
In the end, Amber won, mainly because too many of the Survivors were pissed at Rob. But Rob didn’t care since he’s marrying her anyway. This brought to mind a serious question for me.
There are only two hard-and-fast rules in Survivor. You cannot strike another player or you’re out, and you cannot conspire to share the prize money or you’re out.
Isn’t getting engaged to the other finalist before the final verdict, conspiring to share the money? How great would it have been that when Amber said yes to Boston Rob’s somewhat coherent proposal, that Mark Burnett wandered on to the stage and kicked both of them out of the game? OK, maybe that’s just me.
Wait, I forgot the real best moment of the post-show. Jerri spoke up and talked about the fans don’t realize how hard it is to be on the show and how much pain and anguish and suffering the Survivors go through. The show was held in Madison Square Garden and Jerri got booed by thousands of people. So she left. Nice.
Her argument was like the fight Colby and the Holocaust Survivor had on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” last year, which might have been the single funniest moment on the show. Only, unlike Colby, Jerri was serious. I still loved Colby’s line, “What, you think you had it tough? We were out there on that hot sand all day and I only had one pair of sandals!”
—
The Farns is not as much of a drunk as he used to be. Great?
Corey proves that he won’t strike out in every big at bat. Just most of them.
Beanball Ben Christensen is no longer a Cub. Oh, we’ll miss all the good times. Like…uh…um…
Rick Morrissey just realized that Sammy strikes out a lot. Wow, this guy is just completely talentless, isn’t he? It’s sad. Somebody take his laptop away from him.
Michael Barrett finally threw somebody out yesterday. Yay?
Damian Jackson is just hoping to be the next Jose Macias.
The fact that the Sox don’t play good defense, can’t hit and can’t pitch is finally catching up with them. Who knew?
The Mets called up James Baldwin. What, Johnny Ruffin’s not available?
Mariotti puts down the doughnut for a pointless article about how Dwyane Wade’s still playing and LeBron and Carmelo are at home. Guess what, Jay, in two more games, Darko’s girlfriend can hold up a Last Rookie Standing sign. That’ll mean just as much. Nothing.
Regular Joe hadn’t pitched in a week so he threw the ninth yesterday. He still sucks. Thanks for reminding us. We love Regular Joe, he’s a great guy, but he’s getting pummelled this year. It’s time to come to grips with that.
The Wizard of Roz writes what we hope will be the last column ever about Anthony Molina and Ben Christensen. I feel bad for Molina, but let’s not pretend he was ever going to be Johnny Bench, OK?
Who was driving Thurman Thomas’ car, Nate Newton or Bam Morris?
Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback.
Ken Rosenthal says Clement is pitching for a paycheck. Gee, ya think?
Wendell Kim will miss tomorrow night’s game in LA. He’ll rejoin the team on Wednesday night. He’s in Japan today picking up the Cubs new bullpen car.
They called her “Wisconsin’s most famous sausage.” Nice.
See, they are “specially abled” after all.
America’s finest news source says “Mexicans are sweeping the nation!” Literally.
Thought I felt love, but it was a gas… I’ll just go home and munch some grass.
Thought I felt love, but it was a gas… I’ll just go home and munch some grass.
How long are we going to have to wait for Corey to figure it out? If anything you’d expect him to have messed up timing from being off most of last year. But just because you don’t play, doesn’t mean you can’t figure out the general area of the strike zone. He’s swinging at just about everything. He also lacks the recognition of the fundamental situations of baseball and he’s not improving at all in the field. I’d settle for average there. I’m sure he’ll be a good player by the time he’s 28 or so but that’s 4 more years of this crap.
/end rant
Still damn funny. Screw you southsiders.
Must have sound on to really appreciate this…
Cubs Vs. Sox ( is better with speakers turned on )
http://www.spankwad.com/northvssouth
You forgot hot Jenna (Morasco) is dating Ethan… But "they have so much more in common than just Survivor…"
Also, Sue Hawk got an Extreme Makeover and still looks like hell, and Hatch met his new lover during his post vote-off Argentinian Cruise….
Why the hell didn’t they let our boy Rob talk during the reunion?…
I also don’t think you mentioned the additional $1 million that viewers can vote on to award any of the All-Stars at cbs.com…. $1 million in advertising well spent by Cingular—-I guess?
Apparently we were the only people on the planet that hadn’t figured out weeks ago that Rob and Amber would wind up being the final two.
Speaking of baserunning fiascos, what was Derek Lee doing in the 8th inning yesterday? He got on base by being hit with a pitch just above the elbow, but maybe it got him higher than that. He was advanced to second base and then, on a routine fly ball by Martinez that was apparently a hit and run, he was meandering past third when he realized that he had better get back to second, which he tried to do on a straight line from about a third of the way toward home plate. Then on the way back to second he turned around and ran back to third, and was thrown out at second for a double play. Or at least I think that he was thrown out, since by then I was so embarrassed for him I was covering my eyes.
Yeah, Derrek screwed that up by himself. No way I could help him there. I’m only the third base coach. What, I’m supposed to watch where the ball goes? Really?
Plus I had an obstructed view Vinnie Castillo’s mullet was in my line of sight.
Wendell, you’re fired.
Michael Barrett couldn’t throw me out
Uh, Chris…You’ve lost a step. Both of them actually…..
I could be successful 60% of the time against Barrett. Moreso if there is a hot dog on second base. And I don’t mean Tito Fuentes.
I think I could steal three out of five. Or maybe 60 percent. Whichever comes first.
At least Barrett is better at throwing out baserunners than me.
To me, it doesn’t matter one whit whether Barrett throws out 15% or 25% of baserunners this year so long as he continues to hit well and call the kind of games that allow our starters to have one of the lowest eras in the bigs. In my opinion, far too much attention is placed on throwing out baserunners as part of a catcher’s attributes. The quality of the game he calls has far mor eof an affect on the defensive aspect of the game than the difference of throwing out a runner once or twice a week.
Milky, you’re full of beans!
I’m a great catcher because I can throw guys out! So what if I can’t hit at all, or if I led the majors in dropped third strikes last year. I’ve got a cannon!
Yeah Paul, you have a built-in excuse for not throwing anyone out. Me.
I’m a real person! Just like you and…everybody else who got $20K to get naked!
I’m a wonderful thing.
Yeah, great arm Mr. Bako, too bad on Saturday you failed to throw a runner out on a pitch out when you threw to the wrong side of 2nd. Where the hell is Robert Machado?
When last seen I was an Oriole!
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5660
Then they got some punk named Javy something.
Real bad use of the term ‘agrregious’ Andy.
"e·gre·gious"
Conspicuously bad or offensive.
[From Latin gregius, outstanding : -, ex-, ex- + grex, greg-, herd; see ger- in Indo-European Roots.]
When last seen, I was pimpin’ hard
Borowski hasn’t looked good an awful lot this season, but the times he has looked the worst have been in the non-save situations he’s been put into. I think he’s been put in three and he’s been AWFUL with a capital, well, every letter in all those situations.
Derrek Lee = 2 spot.
The "Sarge" = Demoted to third base coach for the fired Wendell Kim.
Anybody else = Cubs’ new hitting coach.
Cubs = More wins???
Bobby Mac, I’m not sure where you came from, but I’m damn glad to see you here.
Yo, dawg. It was a play on words between Bob Machado and Bob McAdoo. You can score, but you can’t spell, my brotha.
Yo, is this the 70’s Playas Ball up in here?
Sheeeit. If we in da league right now, we’d ALL be full boat.
Peja my ass.
Boon, we’re the only WHITE people in here.
BC, with the exception of Hawkins, nobody in the bullpen has been consistently good this year. We can bitch about Borowski all we want, but we all know that he’s not losing his job until he: A. Blows a couple of saves or B. goes on the DL with a bad arm.
DO YOU MIND IF WE DANCE WITH YO DATES?
de, – Sunday, February 22, 2004 at 11:47:29 (PST)
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